Freethought of the Day

Would you like to start your day on a freethought note? "Freethought of the Day" is a daily freethought calendar brought to you courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, highlighting birthdates, quotes, and other historic tidbits.

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February 19

Svante August Arrhenius

On this date in 1859, physical chemist and Nobel Prize winner Svante August Arrhenius was born in Sweden. He studied at Upsala University, then under a professor in Stockholm. His 1884 thesis, on the galvanic conductivity of electrolyes, won him the first docentship at Uppsala in physical chemistry, a new branch of science. Arrhenius was also awarded a traveling fellowship and worked with scientists throughout Europe. Arrhenius was appointed professor of physics in 1895 at Stockholm's Hogskola. He won the Nobel Prize for chemical research in 1903, for originating the theory of electrolytic dissociation, or ionization. He also investigated osmosis, toxins and antitoxins. He was offered the position of chief of the Nobel Institute for Physical Chemistry, founded just for him. Arrhenius wrote classic textbooks in his field, which were translated into many languages, and also popularized science for the general public, with such books as The Destinies of the Stars (1919). His wide interests in science are exemplified by his contributions to the understanding of such phenomena as the Northern Lights. In 1914, he was awarded the Faraday Medal of the Chemical Society. During World War I, he worked to get the release of many German and Austrian scientists who had been made prisoners of war. According to freethought historian Joseph McCabe, Arrhenius was a "Monist." D. 1927.

Nicolaus Copernicus

On this date in 1473, astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (né Nicolaus Koppernigk) was born the youngest of four children in Torun, Poland. He studied a wide range of subjects, including philosophy, Latin, Greek, mathematics, law, medicine and astronomy, at the universities of Krakow, Bologna, Padua and Ferrara. His uncle, a bishop, strongly encouraged him to pursue a career in the church, since it would provide economic security, so he pursued a doctorate in canon law. His uncle helped secure him the position of canon at Frauenburg Cathedral in 1497, which provided a comfortable income and did not require much work. This allowed Copernicus the freedom to pursue other interests, such as economics, medicine, law, diplomacy, art and astronomy. A bishop later threatened to take away his income unless he entered the priesthood, but he continued to refuse. His opinion was so valued that the Fifth Lateran Council sought his views on calendar reform in 1514. Around this time, Copernicus began circulating his Little Commentary, criticizing the Ptolemaic system that placed the Earth at the center of the universe. Copernicus made astronomical observations without the aid of a telescope, which was not invented until 1609.

His most significant contribution to astronomy and science, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), postulated, against the view of the church at the time, a heliocentric universe, in which the Earth rotated on an axis around the sun each year. He completed this revolutionary book in 1530, and did not allow for its publication until 1541, at the urging of one of his admirers. Without Copernicus' permission, a preface was anonymously added right before publication, classifying the work as mere hypothetical speculation. (Johannes Kepler later publicized the identity of the preface's author, Andreas Osiander, a Lutheran pastor from Nuremberg.) Copernicus supposedly received the published book just before his death. Even though Copernicus dedicated his book to Pope Paul III, who had a fondness for astrology, in 1616 the book was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books (publications deemed immoral and impious by the Roman Catholic Church). In part, Galileo was condemned to house arrest and Giordano Bruno was executed for the heretical "Copernican" view that the Earth was not the center of the universe. D. 1543.

"Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded."

Andre Breton

On this date in 1896, French poet and writer André Breton was born in Tinchebray, France. He wrote poetry early in life but formally studied medicine and later psychiatry. He met Sigmund Freud in 1921 and his later writings were inspired in part by Freud’s ideas. Breton is considered, along with Salvador Dalí and others, a founder of surrealism. His Surrealist Manifesto was published in 1924, and that same year he influenced the founding of the Bureau of Surrealist Research. The French government in 1938 sent Breton on a cultural commission to Mexico, where he met Leon Trotsky, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Breton and Trotsky wrote a manifesto calling for freedom in art, “Pour un art révolutionnaire indépendent” (“Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art”). Breton joined the French Army medical corps during World War II, at which time the Vichy government banned his writings. He escaped to the United States in 1941. Upon his return to Paris in 1946, he became a strong proponent of anarchism and founded a new group of surrealists. Breton was extensively published. Some of his works include: If You Please (1920), The Magnetic Fields (1920), A Corpse (1924), Nadja (1928), The Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1920), The Automatic Message (1933), What Is Surrealism (1934), Manifestoes of Surrealism (1955) and The Magic Art (1957). In André Breton: Arbiter of Surrealism (1967), Clifford Browder noted: “ . . . Breton was unflinching in his rejection of mysticism, which he associated with the worship of a superior power outside the human mind; for him the Surrealist merveilleux contained no trace of religious mystery” (p. 63). Breton was married three times. He met his third wife while in exile in the United States during World War II. He had one daughter, Aube, with his second wife. Breton died at the age of 70 and is buried in Paris. D. 1966.

“Everything that is doddering, squint-eyed, vile, polluted and grotesque is summoned up for me in that one word: God!”

—Andre Breton, in a footnote published in his book, Surrealism and Painting, 1928

Freethought of the Day

Would you like to start your day on a freethought note? "Freethought of the Day" is a daily freethought calendar brought to you courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, highlighting birthdates, quotes, and other historic tidbits.

If you would like to be placed on the "Daily Freethought" e-mail list to automatically receive the calendar notice, log in and edit your email settings (My Membership). Or, email and include your first and last name with your request for verification purposes. This email service is limited to members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation or subscribers to Freethought Today. To become an FFRF member, click here.